Personnel- Physical Evidence

e-mail: michael.sigman@ucf.edu

Michael Sigman studied chemistry at Southwest Missouri State University, receiving a B.S. degree in 1982. His doctoral research in physical organic chemistry was undertaken at Florida State University. In 1986 he moved to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, as an NIH postdoctoral fellow, and then moved to the University of Chicago in 1987 for two additional years of NIH postdoctoral work in photochemistry and laser spectroscopy. In 1989, he was hired as a research scientist at Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, MI. One year later, Dr. Sigman accepted a research staff position at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. At Oak Ridge, he spent 12 years conducting research in areas ranging from environmental photochemistry explosives analysis. In 2002, Dr. Sigman moved to the University of Central Florida and the National Center for Forensic Science to become an Associate Professor of Chemistry and the Assistant Director for Physical Evidence. In 1997, Dr. Sigman was the recipient of an R&D-100 Award for the development of a new air-sampling adsorbent. He has served on numerous review/advisory panels and in 2002, Dr. Sigman served as the Chemical Threat Group Chair for Department of Energy workshop on “Basic Research Needs for Countering Terrorism”.

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Dr. Richard Blair
Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Forensic Science

email: richard.blair@ucf.edu

Biography:

Dr. Richard Blair grew up in Sterling Heights, MI and attended Hope College from 1990-1994 where he received a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics. As an undergraduate he worked with Dr. William Polik. He continued to UC Berkeley to pursue an advanced degree in Physical Chemistry and received an M.S. in 1998. He then worked as a programmer for a company developing software for science education. After a brief stint as a thermal testing technician at AMD (Advanced Microdevices), he resumed his graduate education at UCLA under Richard Kaner and received a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry (2004). He then went to work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory under Dr. Jean-Pierre Fleurial. At JPL he worked on the next generation of thermoelectric power modules for spacecraft. In 2007, he accepted a position as assistant professor of Chemistry and Forensic Science at the University of Central Florida. His work at UCF has expanded on a synthetic technique learned at JPL where mechanical force is used to induce a chemical reaction. His current research is focused on biofuels, greener syntheses, and forensic identifications of illicit substances.

Affiliated Faculty

Dr. Andres Campiglia
Professor of Chemistry and Graduate Coordinator

e-mail: andres.campiglia@ucf.edu

Biography:

Dr. Campiglia research efforts are focused on the development of advance spectroscopic techniques for the analysis of compounds of environmental, forensic, clinical and biological interest. The unifying goal of his research is to provide new technology to obtain rapid, simple, selective and sensitive methods of analysis. Instrumental development aims field monitoring applications with portable designs, high-resolution spectroscopy with cryogenic probes and sensor technology with fiber optic detection, sophisticated data processing techniques for multidimensional data formats and experimental for cryogenic absorption measurements in backscatter mode. These approaches have made Dr. Campiglia one of the current leading scientists in the field of high-resolution luminescence spectroscopy and its applications to analytical spectroscopy. The relevance and impact of Dr. Campiglia’s work can be realized by his professional track record of numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals, citations, presentations in international conferences, participation in the editorial board of two peer-reviewed analytical journals and substantial external funding from prestigious agencies such as NSF, NIH, NIJ, PRF, DOE and industry. The scientific and social impact of his work has been demonstrated by significant “highlights” appearing in press and internet articles including newspapers and invited television interviews supported by the American Physics Society.

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